Hal Waters was a man who knew how to take
well composed photographs, and who in the era of plate glass cameras with slow shutter
speeds was able to venture well beyond the confines of the studio. I have nothing but
admiration for this photographer who must have had to contend with the extreme range of
temperatures and climate found in northern India, together with the bane of photographers
 dust and in the case of India crowds of people who come to stare at the new
curiosity. Hal was not a photographer by profession but for ten years worked for the NWR
as an Inspector of accounts.

Hal was a third generation "Brit"
in India, born in Simla in 1885 and died in 1966. His grandfather left Ireland in 1831 to
join the EIC Artillery in Calcutta. His father was a school headmaster, principally at
Rawalpindi Station European School, Hal was educated at his fathers school in
Rawalpindi.

Hal joined the NWR
as a guard in the Traffic Department under training for Superior Grade , he resigned as he
felt obstacles were being put in his way to prevent him from succeeding. He took up the
post of Travelling Inspector of Accounts and was thus able to see and photograph much of
the NWR system.

Hals sercice record shows he worked as
Accounts Inspector on the following sections:-

5/3/1907 under training. Rawalpindi to :-
Hassan, Abdal.

Jhand.

Gujarkhan.

Wazirabad to:- Jammu Tawi.

Lyallpore.

1908 Jhelum to:- Gujarkhan.

Gujrat.

Lala Musa to Bhera.

1909-1910. Kalka  Simla Railway.

1910-1912 Mianwali. Jhand to:- Leiah.

Thal.

Out Agency to Miranshah.

Daudkhal to Mari Ghat.

1912  1913 Kotri:- Kotri Bridge to
Padidan.

Kotri to Dadu (excluding Kotri).

1913 Sukkur:- Sukkur to Rohri.

Rohri to Samasatta.

Khanpur to Chachran..

1914 to 15/2/1917. Saharanpur to :- Meerut
City.

Rajpura Jn.

Patiala & Dhablan.

2.
Inspectors trolley turn of the century.

3. Multan
Inspector and gang about to set out 16/12/84.(Photo by Terry Case.)

In 1917 Hal resigned from the NWR to join
the Civil Dept.and took up the position of Superintendent, Office IG of Prisons.

In 1950 Hal migrated to New Zealand at the age of 65.

In 1959 Neville Thomas married his daughter
Rosemary. Neville & Rosemary have a family history site for the French & Waters
family in India at:-

4. Hals NWR map.See the map key where Hal added details showing areas travelled and
locations of some of the photos he took.

|

Photos from
Hal's Album

It is not my intention to repeat the photos
from Nevilles web site, however I will use a couple and give more details. As a
railway enthusiast I think Hals photos are priceless, he obviously knew a lot about
the railways and photographed methodically what was of interest.

Seeing the scans for the first time was truly
exciting, but when I saw some whole pages from the album I began to understand Hals
true abilities as a photographer who savoured the country and created such stunning
images.

5. P class
2-4-0 no 11, built by Dubbs in 1844. The locomotive was built for the Scinde, Punjab &
Delhi Railway that became part of the NWR. These were the express passenger and mail train
locos of the day, they were quickly overtaken by the growing weight of trains and replaced
by larger 4-4-0 types.

6. Ghazighat
1907. An early photo from Hals collection shows the platform scene.

7.Compare
the scene at Ghazighat with one I took of a fruit vendor and pasengers awaiting departure
of a train from Sargodha to Lala Musa on 3/1/95.(Photo by Terry Case.)

8. Another
early photo shows Hal experimenting in catching a moving image of the Pershwar Mail train
seen at Jhelum in 1909. The engine is a 4-4-0 type probably one of the new SPS class
designed by the British Engineering Standards Association (BESA), to enable British
manufacturesrs to complete large orders of standard classes for the various Indian private
railway companies. The classes were highly successful and some of the ex NWR types had
long lives finishing asbranch passenger engines in Pakistan in the mid 1990s!

9. Shows an
SPS arriving at Sargodha passing the maze of semaphore signals on a train from Lala Musa
on 2/1/95. (Photo by Terry Case.)

10. 1908 and
the locomotive shed at Wazirababad (on the main line from Lahore to Pershwar). Note the
station to the left.

11. Compare Hals
photo with the scene I took on21/12/84; not
much had changed! (CD10-68).

12. Hals
time spent in the Frontier Province gave him the opportunity to photograph the Kohat-Thal
light railway. The photo shows
one of the original E class locomotives that has been derailed.

The Kohat-Thal railway was built as a
military narrow gauge line in the North West Frontier Province, near Preshwar and the
Afghanistan border. The line opened to Kohat in 1902 and extended to Thal in 1903, a total
of 91.5 miles. Connection with the main NWR system at Khushalgarth was originally by
aerial ropeway across the Indus until this was closed in 1903 after an accident. The line
as far as Kohat was converted to broad gauge in 1908 and included a bridge over the
Indus.The traffic locomotives were part of a series of 36 supplied by Bagnall for light
military railways in India, originally known as class MT but later NWR class E." some
were later transferred to the Delhi Durbar Light Railway

The photo shows one of the original E class
locomotives that has been derailed. More photos of these engines can be seen at Nevillessite.

Hals notes on the railway
include:-"the only goods traffic other than military, being Patha palm from which
matting and brooms are made. The passenger trains comprise of one 1st & 2nd
class carriage & the rest are 3rd class carriages. In these the seats run
across the carriage & the sides are open, hessian curtains are provided on the sides
of the carriages for use in in-clement weather. The line runs along valleys between high
hills, the former are very fertile & watered by numerous streams; the latter are
barren & rocky except where covered with shrub or Patha palms. All the railway
stations are fortified, excepting Kohat & Kohat City & are manned by a Police
Constable armed with a smooth bore "Martini" and from two to six Pathan
Chowkidara (watchmen) who are armed with "Brown Besse" rifles, which are loaded
once in six months by the Traffic Inspector! These men refer to their rifles as
"Sothas" (staves). The men often file down their rifle ramrods to a point so as
to use them as bayonets when necessary. Once at Hangu a raider who had got into the
station yard was prodded by one of these ramrods whilst trying to scale a wall after
looting goods " Life on the frontier!

13. This is a scan of a builders
advertisement showing one of the engines, modified with extended tanks.

14.Vice
Regal Special at Kohat in 1912. Does anyone know what the occasion was, or if it was one
of the regular Vice Regal Tours of inspection? The train loco is another of the successful
BESA designed engines, a Standard Goods loco (SG), which were often used as passenger
engines in hill country.

15. Some SGS locomotives built at the turn of
the century reamined in use till the mid 1990s. This photo shows a SGS at Multan on
16-12-1984 being prepared for a passenger train. Terry Case. (CD 1-27)

16.A
page from the album showing scenes around Kotri in 1913.

The house is "Sandy Hook". Hal
wrote about it:- "My first residence in Kotri. A house of 13 rooms in a sandy waste!
After my father and brother left for Colacanune, I felt lost in such a huge bungalow so
moved to another of half the size, nearer the station but surrounded by burrow-pits."

The photos of the fishing boat and the fishermen show
elegant simplicity, which contrast with the unfortunate pile-up of wagons in the staion
yard. The railway enthusiast in me exhults at seeing the elegant "Small L
class". Not only are such photographs rare, it is the skill in composition that
single out Hal's photos. The engine was part of a batch built by Neilson or Dubbs of
Glasgow in 1886 and classified as HL. They were initially allocated to work Frontier
Division traffic.

17. Multan Cantonment station in 1913,
architecture to the Raj style. This grand station remained well kept when I visited, in
1986, I saw the interior of one of the offices being converted to a mosque.

18. The Punjab Rifles (I.D.F.) Armoured Train Section photographed in 1919
at Moghalpura. There had been quite a bit of correspondence on the India List re Railway
regiments, did the Punjab Rifles rate a mention? ***

|*** Additional notes about the Punjab Rifles: The Punjab Rifles were raised on 1st April 1861 as the First
Punjab Volunteer Rifle Corps. On 15th July 1871,they absorbed the Punjab Light Horse
Volunteers (raised in 1867). They became the 3rd Punjab Rifles, Indian Defence Force on
1st April 1917, and the Punjab Rifles (AFI) on 1st Oct. 1920. As a badge, they bore the
Punjab Coat of Arms with the motto "Crescate Fluviis". By 1936, they comprised
Headquarters and two Companies of infantry, and two light mortar platoons and were
administered as a part of the Punjab Contingent.(Information Courtesy: William).

Here we leave Hal's album. Please write to
Neville or myself should you think that more photos would be of interest.

A reminder that these pages on the NWR are in
international effort: my inspiration and prompting came from Hal Hughes who now lives in
England. My technical guru and internet doctor is Shankar, an Indian expat now living in
Dubai in the UAE. Shankar not only converts my material to Internet pages, he somehow
finds space to post them to, whilst maintaining a huge website dedicated to the Indian
Railways. Neville lives in New Zealand: he and Rosemary have made available the photos
that you have seen. I hope you enjoy their generosity in sharing these.

Do
you have a story to tell connected to the NWR?

If you have a tale to tell connected to the
NWR, or have some old photographs on hand, (remember the Hals of this world are now very
rare, and all the old photographs are now PRECIOUS!), why not share them with us on this
page?

I have traveled to Indian and Pakistan many
times in the 1980s and 90s, and have a love for the country and its history. I live in
Australia, and can be contacted at:- caset@benalla-college.vic.edu.au

I hope our next page will be a celebration
of the Kalka Simla Railway, and maybe the narrow gauge lines from Pathankot. We are
looking for photos and stories to develop this page.